Prague, Jan 18 (CTK) – Finance Minister Andrej Babis, ANO movement head, was used to make decisions himself in his business, not to seek compromises, which has caused a clash of political cultures in the coalition government, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) told CTK on Wednesday.
“It seems to me that Andrej Babis in fact has not been used to negotiate with somebody. Since he alone controlled Agrofert for many years and made all decisions by himself, the need for reaching an agreement, broader cooperation was a sort of a shock for him,” said Sobotka, whose cabinet was appointed three years ago.
Billionaire Babis is the sole owner of the Agrofert chemical, food-processing, wood-processing and media holding, which has over 33,000 employees.
The government has been functioning thanks to the coalition partners but also in spite of them, Sobotka said, referring to Babis.
“This was a clash of cultures within the coalition. I am glad the government has survived it,” he said.
The government nevertheless managed to push through a large part of its programme, also thanks to the assertive attitude the CSSD had in promoting the coalition policy statement, he said.
“We definitely had to enforce a lot of things and fight for them, such as the indexation of pensions and an increase in the minimum wage,” Sobotka said.
He said the conflicts in the coalition were not so sharp because the three partners, including the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), had rather compatible programmes.
The CSSD, ANO and the KDU-CSL all had a critical view of the right-wing governments that ruled the Czech Republic before mid-2013, he said.
Before the 2013 general election, the CSSD was in the opposition, the KDU-CSL had no MPs in the Chamber of Deputies and ANO was a newcomer on the political scene, he added.
The previous right-wing governments were hampered by internal struggles, while the current government rehabilitated the idea of coalition cooperation, Sobotka said.
The Social Democrats never threatened to leave the government in the past three years, he said.
Sobotka said ANO might have considered leaving the government during the dispute about a police shakeup last year. The investigation of the controversial police reform seems to show that ANO’s accusation concerning the police president was unfounded, he said.
“However, we must wait for the conclusions of the (parliamentary) commission of investigation,” he added.
When asked about the autumn general election, Sobotka said he will be the CSSD election leader in South Moravia.
He said the party should consider making the CSSD ministers, all of whom have done a lot of hard work and become popular, its regional election leaders.
Sobotka said he would like the CSSD to be more open to fielding candidates who are not members of the party. “However, this is very hard in the atmosphere of a standard political party,” he said.
